


Who watches the Watcher

by Kangoo



Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Ficlet Collection, M/M, Pining, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-30 17:08:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20776280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kangoo/pseuds/Kangoo
Summary: Collection of some of the small stories I wrote on tumblr while playing Pillars of Eternity and never thought to put on AO3





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i kind of forgot where i was going with that one

Aloth didn’t expect to find himself back in Defiance Bay so soon, but the city is like a whirlpool, impossible to escape on your way from one side of the Dyrwood to the other. He usually does his best to not overstay his welcome: fifteen years have not yet managed to erase the chaos Waidwen’s Legacy wracked on the city, and the fall of the Wheel has not helped the situation.

But, if not monitored, the city’s conflicts might fester into the kind of instability where the Leaden Key would _thrive_, and it has become Aloth’s life work to avoid just that. So he found some kind of compromise between his duty and his personal reluctance in the form of a large network of spies and informants. They send him updates on a monthly basis, describing in excruciating detail the political and social happenings of the largest city in the Dyrwood. The heavily encrypted letters are usually as long as a small novel and take him sometimes an entire day just to skim through, which he takes as a collective effort from his internal contacts to make his life a living Hel.

Or maybe it’s an underhanded way to force him to come see things for himself, if a deeply unsuccessful one: each unnecessarily wordy missive about trade agreements going awry only adds to his reasons to _never step foot in the city himself_.

But Anathema, his contact inside the rebuilt Sanitarium, has sent him an uncharacteristically terse letter. Its content could be boiled down to ‘newcomer animancer is likely to be a member of the Leaden Key’, without much more context or details. He took it as the urgent warning it is and immediately packed his bag and set for Defiance Bay.

Most cities in the Dyrwood and Deadfire Archipelago make him feel nostalgic, but none evokes such a gnawing sense of longing for the past as the Dyrwoodan capital. They’ve spent weeks here, running around as Renard—

Well. As he did what he did best: tried to save the world, one person at a time, and ended up falling into schemes of increasing scale and importance as a result.

He hasn’t seen his friend (_yar sweetheart, lad_, Iselmyr corrects, but he steadfastly ignores her) since they parted ways in the Deadfire, Aloth chasing after the Leaden Key and Renard setting sail for gods-know-where. Not a whisper of his name in a decade was odd for such an infamous and influential man, and he still occasionally worried that his friend had found his end while stumbling into another plot to end the world. But he always refused to dwell on the possibility. Renard had survived worse: neither a two thousand year old evil mastermind nor death nor a literal god could stop him, so it’s more likely he went hiding into the most remote place of Eora, hoping to escape the expectations people always seem to put on him.

And anyway his duty is too important for him to be distracted by thoughts of the man he loved (_still love_, his own treacherous mind says, Iselmyr cackling in the distance). It was important enough then for him to let go—

_It still is_, he assures himself, forcing doubts and regrets down to focus on the task at end. No point in dwelling on what could have been.

-

Because Anathema is a cruel, cruel orlan who loves to have company in her misery, she makes him go down into the catacombs and has the _audacity_ to arrive an hour late.

Aloth doesn’t have many good experiences with catacombs, tunnels, sewers and other underground labyrinth. Especially not _those_ catacombs. And sure, there are fewer cultists and necromancers this time around, but it’s still as cramped and utterly _disgusting_ as ever — he knows, by experience, that he’ll be better off burning those clothes than trying to get the foul smell out of them.

Going by previous reports, this is where she spends most of her time, using the expensive network of tunnels and sewers to go around the city, but that’s not an excuse for insisting this be their meeting place. There are many dark alleys and dirty inns _on the surface_, where no one asks question and there aren’t skeletons slowly decaying into dust just feet away. Knowing her, the real reason is that she wants to get revenge for the mandatory monthly report _so much_ that she’d subject herself to this place just so _he_ has to be here too.

It’s not even a meeting, really: Anathema is notorious for disliking kith contact, hence why he believes she might actually have chosen to live in the catacombs. Instead she makes him wait for almost an hour in what used to be the necromancer’s hideout, drops a pile of loose sheets of paper in his arms and disappear the way she came, leaving no trace of her passage as she slips back into the shadows.

He stands there for a moment, clutching the pages against his chest, before Iselmyr takes the helm and lets out an impressive string of curse. He swears he hears her laugh somewhere down the dark passages. Once Iselmyr lets him have the control of his body back he stuffs the stack of paper in his bag and strides off, quietly fuming.

It’s when he reaches Copperlane that he realizes he doesn’t actually know where he’s staying the night. He’s not overly fond of taverns: he’s broken into enough of them to know exactly what their security standards are. But it’s not like he has anywhere else to stay. At this point he would even be glad for a break-in: he feels like burning something, and a robber might do the trick.

After quick deliberations he makes his way toward Ondra’s Gift. The district has made an art out of minding your own business, and its criminality rate is high enough that shady characters such as him — working against the Leaden Key gave him reflexes and habits rarely seen in good upstanding members of society and Iselmyr _really_ doesn’t help him stay inconspicuous — slip right out of people’s minds as long as they don’t start shit. It’s enough advantages that he’s ready to put up with the brothel for one night.

He pushes the door of The Salty Mast and is immediately assaulted by the warm air, smelling like incense, cheap ale and sweat. It’s summer, but the air inside is still hotter than the already sweltering heat outside, and Aloth briefly reconsiders his decision. He could walk to The Goose and Fox before nightfall and get a bed there, or just a spot in their backroom if all the rooms are already taken. It wouldn’t be that much effort. But he’s been on the road for a week straight, he’s dirty and tired, and unlike most other taverns The Salty Mast doesn’t make you pay extra for a bath.

Inhaling one last breath of fresh air, Aloth steps into the brothel.

Maea is still there, nodding in his direction when she notices him, but she’s older. Wearier, like most inhabitants of the city are, nowadays. She doesn’t recognize him, of course: fifteen years is a long time, and he was only a face in the crowd even then. Renard she could recognize. His face is hard to forget.

He pays for a room and drags himself to the most isolated table he finds, keeping his back to the wall and his traits hidden under the shadow of his hood. He would look out of place in most brothels, but Defiance Bay’s standards are… lower than most, and the presence of so many mercenaries and adventurers in the city means there are far shadier people than a simple hooded traveler seeking a meal and company. Such as the group of armed kiths on the other side of the main room, laughing uproariously as they drink. They alone look boisterous and dangerous enough that all attention is kept well away from Aloth.

It’s not the best of situations, but it’s good enough that he feels safe dumping his newly-acquired reading material on the table to flip through it while he eats through the last of his food supplies. He rarely risks the food in public places: it is frighteningly easy to poison someone, and people will do anything for a handful of coins.

The stack turns out to be quite tidy, separate into smaller stacks attached together with pieces of strings. The first one is the report he originally expected from Anathema this month. It’s boring and predictable enough that he allows himself to skim it without paying too much attention to it. He knows that the matter must be urgent or she wouldn’t have called him there, but at the moment he is by far too tired to read anything important and still and remember it clearly tomorrow.

Still, it’s work, and by trying to commit the details to memory he ends up falling into the half-dozing tunnel vision he often experiences when he’s trying to work through his exhaustion. He’s so engrossed in his attempt at understanding — it doesn’t help that Anathema’s handwriting is as illegible as ever — that he actually jumps when a hand slams on his table.

He looks up sharply, glaring at the interloper who happens to be one of the adventurer he saw earlier. The man is easily a good head taller than him, with a heavy plate armor that just screams ‘_I was kicked out of the Crucible Knights and they preferred to let me keep the armor than touch something that I wore on my body for more than a day_’, which is a worryingly common archetype for mercenaries in the city. The Knights’ standards are higher nowadays than they used to be, at least hygiene-wise.

“Hello, sweetheart,” he says, probably going for a seductive purr and only sounding like a deranged crow cursed with speech. “You come here often?”

“No.”

“Really? Shame. What if I gave you a good reason to come back, hm?”

“I highly doubt your ability to do that,” Aloth replies, rolls his eyes and looks back to his reports, already dismissing the man. He clicks his tongue in annoyance when he notices the hand still resting upon the pile of paper.

His annoyance turns to anger when his other hand comes to rest on his cheek, the press of cold metal forcing him to raise his face toward the stranger again. “Come on, sugar, that’s _rude_.”

Aloth can feel Iselmyr clawing at his mind, rising to the surface in her urge to make him swallow back his words with a well-placed fireball — she’s been getting the hang of his magic lately. He doesn’t fight her, letting go of the control of his body altogether.

She shrugs his body on like a coat, settling into limbs so familiar yet so different, throwing their shoulders back and making sure to look the strangers in the eyes as she glares. He chuckles, delighted.

“Feisty, aren’t you?” He gets even closer to them. His breath stinks of the place’s cheap ale, and if it were Aloth in control, he would probably gag at the sensation of it brushing against his skin. “I like that.”

“I’d have a goat’s jig with a pig before I looked at yer stick, ye wagtail toss pot!”

And then she spits on his face.

Aloth has a brief moment of clarity as she withdraws in which he suddenly remembers _why_ he usually never let Iselmyr do the talking when he’s not actively looking for a fight.

“Why, you little bitch—” The mercenary’s hand lets go of his face, for which he’s glad until he sees him raises it in a fist that is, without a doubt, about to collide with his face.

That’s when he’s struck with probably the strongest sense of déjà-vu he’s ever felt. He’s tired and dirty, present here only because of his work concerning the Leaden Key, and Iselmyr’s foul mouth and hot temper just got him into a fight he’s unlikely to get out of unhurt. It’s Gilded Vale all over again. Although this time, Renard won’t be coming to his rescue—

A hand wraps itself around the mercenary’s wrist. The man tugs, frowning, but his expression turns into bewilderment when, instead of freeing his hand, he is sent stumbling backward. The movement reveals the disheveled figure of another man holding him back, traits hard to distinguish in the shadows of the poorly-lit tavern. The mercenary’s face twists in a pained grimace as the grip on his wrist tightens and the newcomer leans toward him, muttering, “Cut it _out_, asshole, or I’m going to cut _you_.”

The words are slightly slurred, the tone similar to that of a drunk throwing exaggerated threats around to start a brawl, but the glint of a knife close to the mercenary’s navel suggests this man is being perfectly serious.

The first man wrenches his hand free and stalks out without a word, although he can be heard swearing under his breath. He sulks back to his table where his companions welcome him with mocking laughter.

Aloth turns to his impromptu savior, thanks on the tip of his tongue, but freezes before he can speak. His movements have brought the man back into the flickering light of the dim lantern resting on the table, and it takes Aloth a long moment to first recognize his face and then to realize he is not dreaming.

“_Renard?_”

Renard blinks, distracted from glaring at the retreating mercenary’s back, and looks down at him. “Huh. Knew I recognized that voice.” Something odd passes over his face — a flash of conflicting emotions in his eyes before they darken into a sort of resignation — and he lets himself drop into the neared chair, sprawling over the table. With one hand he gestures to Maea for a drink. “Didn’t ‘xpect t’see you here.”

“It has been quite some time, yes,” Aloth replies, unsure what else to say to a man he professed his love to before disappearing for ten years.

He should have sent a letter.

They don’t look at each other and stay in that awkward silence until Maea drops two full tankards in front of them, glancing meaningfully to Aloth. He’ll need it. To Renard, she says, “You’re not on shift tonight.”

Renard salutes her with his newly-acquired drink. “I’m here for your delightful company, of course,” he says, remarkably articulated for someone who looks and smells like he’s been sleeping in a brewery for the last decade. He takes a gulp of the shitty ale without the slightest reaction at the foul taste. “Sure as hell ain’t the quality of the drinks bringing me back.”

She whacks him on the head. “If you wanted better alcohol you’d do a better job.”

He grumbles and waves her away, so she whacks him a second time for good measure before striding off to her next client.

Turns out silence is just as awkward with drinks, at least to Aloth. Renard seems content enough drinking the swill they dare to call ale, but Aloth barely sips it in the hope of diminishing the aftertaste while he stares at his old friend in open curiosity.

He’s— changed. He thought the same when they met again in the wake of Eothas’ destructive journey through the Deadfire, but he sees now that the five years after confronting Thaos were nothing next to the change a decade in the chaos of post-Wheel Eora put Renard through. He looked tired then, mere hours after watching a god bring the cycle of reincarnation to its end, and the dark circles have only gotten worse since then, as if he didn’t get a single night of sleep in the decade they spent apart.

His knuckles are still bloody like he’s been in a fight recently and his swollen eye and the rest of the bruises and scrapes on his face are half-covered by the limp strands of his hair that aren’t caught in a sloppy ponytail. He is nothing like the Renard who never got into a fight if he could avoid it, the one who spent hours washing the blood and salt out of his hair and styling it. There’s still dirt or dried blood stuck under his bitten-short nails.

“What happened to you?” He finally says, aghast.

Renard lifts his head just enough to reveal a wry grin. “Ten years is a long time.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fuck the gods
> 
> eothas you're fine but you're on thin fucking ice

“It is no business of yours what the gods decide.”

The contempt in Magran’s voice leaves an ashen taste in Renard’s mouth, but he ignores it. They could kill him with a glance, with a breath, with a _thought_, and he is rather fond of his existence, especially since he has made such a habit of tumbling into divine plots and losing his life in the process.

But then Berath says, dispassionate and almost bored, “Your opinion is uncalled for, but noted.”

The Renard from five years ago, the kind, naive man who was losing his mind with hallucinations of past crimes, he would have stayed quiet and obedient. He would have done anything, to save the world and to please the gods, if only in the hope that it would save him from his soul-seeing gift.

But Renard isn’t that man anymore. He has grown, in those five years. He has lost his fear of confrontation, because he has lost his fear of _anyone_. The gods won’t kill him because they need him, and he knows that. To be honest, he’d rather help Eothas than deal with those gods even one more second, but as he cannot do that—

Insubordination will have to be enough.

“How— _dare you_,” he hisses, knowing his rage is barely noticed by the gods and yet unable to keep himself from expressing it, “How dare you drag me into this shit, how dare you drag me into the In-Between without my consent, just to tell me none of what I say matter to you.”

Magran tilts forward, her expression somewhere between annoyed and curious, and he whirls toward her. “It _is _my business! You are the reasons behind every atrocities committed in our world, may they be done in your name or in spite of it. The only reason you stand above me today is because some assholes thousand of years ago had illusions of grandeur. You are nothing more than _constructs_. You were created by mortals and _you will be ended by them_._”_

Berath’s voice rises like the toll of a funeral bell, great and terrible and cold as the void. “Your debt to me is still unpaid, watcher.”

He turns to her, pointing an accusing finger in her direction. “I have no debt to you. My pledge was to Hylia and Hylia alone, and this oath has been fulfilled long ago.”

“I brought you back from the death you should have rightfully suffered.”

“Because you _needed _me! You should have let me die, but you were too desperate for a puppet who would do your bidding— _you_ have a debt to _me!_”

Renard opens his arms wide, staring each god in turns.

“This is bullshit, and _fuck_ all of you.”

(He slams back into his body with the echo of bells still ringing in his head and a sense of futility, tainted with a deep, grim satisfaction.

None of this mattered, but it felt _pretty fucking good_.)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> renard didn't get much of a happy ending.... whoops

As the last of his companions leave the ship — even his closest friends, with Aloth running after the Leaden Key, Edér settling with his nephew-slash-adopted son and Pallegina going back to her beloved country —, weeks after the end of Eothas, Renard sends his crew off with a year worth of pay, sell his ship, and buy one that a single man can easily sail alone. He packs it with as much supplies as it will hold, fill the gaps with what money he cares to bring with him, and takes to the water. Toward the ruins of his home.

Then, as Neketaka becomes but a pinprick of color in the distance, when there’s nothing around him but the endless sea, he finally takes a second to breathe.

The first day is calm, with an easy wind that requires very little of his attention to carry him to the Dyrwood. He spends it lying down in his boat in dazed silence, staring at the depth or at the reflection of the sun on the waves as his fingers dip lazily into the warm water. He drifts in and out of sleep, exhaustion still bearing down on him after his… adventure. His mind is empty.

The second day, he breaks down and cries.

It's been a long time coming. These have been some very stressful times, and the slow departure of every single one of his friends has left him shaken and lacking an anchor, a situation disturbingly similar to the times following Waidwen’s Legacy. And the gods know how he reacted to loneliness back then.

But first he cries. He’s all alone on the uncaring sea, no one to witness the Watcher of Caed Nua at his lowest point; he curls up into a ball on the bottom of his boat and sobs like a child, fat, ugly tears rolling down his cheeks. He cries for the people he couldn’t save, for the friends who left him behind, for Eothas’ last sacrifice. mostly he cries for himself, because no one else will.

He wakes up in the middle of the night with a headache and a clear mind for the first time in too long. The sea is still, no wind coming to agitate it, just a gigantic mirror for the night sky.

Guess he’s stuck in the doldrums in more ways than one, huh?

Time seems to stand still, all his doubts and troubles hanging in the air to be picked apart and analyzed. So, he does. He thinks about what he did. What he could have done better, or worse.

He never wanted to take decisions that would change the world… But he did, and now everyone will have to live with the consequences. The Deadfire is descending into chaos — this one isn’t his fault, he swore to never gets tangled into a faction war again — and the Wheel has fallen. The gods are silent. Eothas is dead, and—

Well, a part of him died alongside the god. He did have a part of his soul, after all.

But Renard had a part of his, too.

Gods are a difficult, confusing subject, and one he hopes won’t be a problem for a good, long time, so he ignores it.

Instead he lays on his back, eyes cast to the starry sky above, and waits for the wind to pick up again. And while he waits, he rests his hand on his chest, above the shard of light pulsing like a heartbeat behind his ribs, warm and sharp like sunlight after a hangover.

Of course the gods will never leave him the fuck alone, will they? Nosy fuckers can’t help themselves from butting into his life. At least he can say that out of all of them, Eothas isn’t the worst to get saddled with, propensity to go on an accidental-ish murder sprays through the country notwithstanding.

With some luck, he won’t be too much trouble.

(Somewhere deep, deep within his mind, a familiar voice says, _Don’t count on that_. But he can still ignore it for a little while, and anyway, Eothas is patient. He understands. He’s tired, too.

The world will just have to go on without them for a while.)


	4. Chapter 4

It’s hard to sleep when the Pallid Knight hounds your slumber, so Renard has taken to spending most of his nights on the deck of the Defiant. He takes a faint sense of peace in the sight of the rolling waves, their foamy crests glowing with the moonlight, the stars indiscernible from their reflection on the dark sea.

Beautiful as it might be, he resents it. He should have enjoyed the past five years of rest more while they lasted.

“Heya, watcher!” Xoti’s voice is quieter than usual, but her usual cheer is a far cry from the nocturnal stillness of the ship. A deckhand looks up at the sound before going back to the piece of wood they’ve been carving.

“Heya yourself, Xoti.” He manages to dredge up a smile despite the torpor weighing heavy on his mind, lulled to a sort of half-asleep state by the rolling of the waves. “Can’t sleep?”

She makes a face. “Serafen’s snoring again.”

He makes a commiserating sound in the back of his throat. “You’d think after fourteen years on a ship, he’d have learned to sleep quietly.”

She chuckles and comes to lean against the rail next to him. Her lantern hangs from her belt, casting a warm light over them both, flickering gold to purple and back again.

They stand in silence for a while, Renard falling back into his sleep-deprived thoughts. The wind whistles against the sails. Somewhere on the deck, a sailor starts humming a song under her breath.

The atmosphere is peaceful enough that he could find himself falling asleep right there and then, Berath be damned, but he’s once again drawn out of his daze by Xoti’s voice.

“Say, Renard…” She doesn’t look at him, staring intently at the horizon. “You ever fell in love?”

He’s taken aback by the question. “I— yeah, once.” Out of all the subjects Renard wants to discuss in the middle of the night, his love-life is far down the list. But she can’t quite hide her curiosity, and he can’t find it in himself to disappoint her, so he obliges. “I’m used to being’— a little infatuated with every handsome man I meet, you know? Especially back _then_, before the Dyrwoods. I was a much more innocent man back then, much more naive too, so a pretty face and a little bit of kindness were all it took for me to get all flustered in front of ‘em.”

“I can’t imagine _you_ flustered,” she muses.

“_Edér _can, that’s for sure. You gotta ask him about it sometimes: he can tell you all the humiliating bits.” Quieter, almost to himself, he adds, “I was a goody-two-shoes desperate for approval and I cried at _everything_. What a mess.”

He drags a hand through his hair, sighing. Fuck, he’s tired, otherwise he wouldn’t be spilling his guts to her like that.

Whatever. It’ll be fine as long as he doesn’t rant about how much he hates Berath. It won’t be the worst she’ll see him at, that’s for sure.

“It started like that with him, too. He was breathtakingly beautiful — and no, before you ask, it’s not an exaggeration. Took the air right out of my lungs with just one look.” Unable to meet her eyes, he looks up at the moon instead. “I was alone and lost and then, there he was — covered in blood, and still outshining even Eothas. And then turns out he’s nice, too, and funny, and _brilliant—_” He stops himself. “I’m rambling. Ah, that’s he problem with late night chats, I just can’t shut up once I start talking.”

“I don’t mind,” she says, smiling kindly. “Go on, please?

“You’re too nice for your own good. But if you insist…” He crosses his arms over the rail and leans forward until the wind-worn wood is digging into his stomach and water is flicking on his face from the waves below. “But as time went on, I realized it was much more than that.” A pause as he swallows hard. “I took a sword through the stomach for him. Dumb move, that: I was lucky the bandit was incompetent enough to miss every important part, or even Durance — that’s an old priest friend of ours — couldn’t have saved me from my own stupidity.”

“But I was reckless, and in love, and I’d have laid my life to his feet if he’d asked for it.” He absentmindedly rubs an old scar on his arm, a pale, jagged line running from his elbow to halfway to his shoulder from a nasty encounter with a drake under Caed Nua. “Never did, of course. Can’t say if I’m glad for it or not.”

“But how did it _feel_?”

_Like fire. Like lightning. Like drowning and still being left wanting for water. Amazing, and awful, until you feel like you can’t live with or without it. Until your forget it’s even there, until it becomes a part of you._

He looks at her critically, thinking about stolen glances between Maia and her, and smiles, just a slight crook of the corner of his mouth. “I’m not the best to ask about love, you know that, right? Only ever been unrequited for me, and even then, I only have the one experience. You’d be better off asking Maia, she sounds like she’s got experience.” Then, chuckling, “Or Serafen, if you’re in for a few, huh, _anecdotes_.”

Xoti looks away quickly. “I’d rather not. It… involves her.”

“Wow,” he says, completely deadpan. “How surprising. I would never have guessed. I’m shocked.”

“You’re mocking me, aren’t you?”

“A bit, yeah. You’re not exactly subtle.” Although she’s been a lot less blunt about it than she was about her (rather short-lived) crush on Edér. Their friendship might be for something in that: if Renard is any indication, Edér knows his way around teaching kids how to keep their infatuation under wraps.

“Right.” She looks down again. The wind stirs her long black hair, blowing it back into her face. She nervously tucks it behind her ear. “It’s that obvious, huh?”

Renard’s mind echoes with the memory of another place, another time, another discussion with a worryingly similar subject.

“_Is it that obvious?”_

“_Well, to me, yeah. Can’t say about the others, but you’re not exactly a paramount of subtlety, kid.”_

(Apparently there is a theme to his life, and it’s ‘uncalled for godly intervention’ and ‘awkward conversations about his love life’.)

He shrugs. “I know what it looks like, that’s all.”

“Ugh. I hope _she_ hasn’t noticed…” Her eyebrows knit together as she glances in the direction of the door to the hold, as if Maia could hear them from below deck. Her hesitation is uncharacteristic, and he wonders if her feelings for Maia are already so serious that she’d be that scared of a possible rejection.

“Believe me, if she had we wouldn’t be having this discussion.” At her questioning look he adds, “I’m no cipher but I am perceptive enough, Xoti, and I spend a _lot_ of time with the two of you.”

Realization dawns on her. She stands up with a start, looking at him with hope in her eyes. “You mean—”

“It’s _very _likely she’s into you,” he agrees.

She grins, delighted, all thoughts of her previous question forgotten. He can’t help to be surprised at the sheer joy on her face at the news that her affection is reciprocated. Would he look like that, if he learned the same thing?

Fuck, who knows. At this point he’s just glad he managed to redirect the conversation.

“So, you know. Have fun, be safe, don’t tell me about it.”

She grins even wider, in a way that tells him Serafen soon won’t be alone in torturing him with raunchy tales. Then, impulsively, she drags him into a hug. He freezes, but she doesn’t let go, and eventually he hugs her back, patting her back lightly. “Thanks, Renard.”

“My pleasure. Now got the fuck to sleep.”

“Aye aye captain!”

She jogs back to the crew’s quarters, waving goodbye on her way down. He lazily waves back. As soon as she disappears from view he falls back against the railing, groaning.

He avoided the worst of it. He’s lucky she’s not the most observant of his companions — Maia would _not_ have been fooled.

Casting one last glance at the sea, he follows her under the deck. Might as well try to sleep now: there isn’t any more peace waiting for him in the waves.

–

His first mistake is to take a break in the Luminous Bathhouse. They’re tired and battered from a bad encounter with the traps in Arkemyr’s manor, and when they limp out of the Dark Cupboard, Renard takes one look at the bathhouse on the other side of the street and says, “Anyone here uncomfortable with public nudity?”

A chorus of ‘_nuh-uh_’s and Serafen’s more enthusiastic ‘_on the contrary!_’ answers him, so no one complains when he sets for the bathhouse.

Soon enough they’re all naked in a quiet corner of the mostly-empty establishment — it is, after all, closer to night than morning — and blissfully soaking in the hot water, washing days of travel worth of dirt, blood and, in the two wizards’ case, ashes.

Renard leans back against the border of the pool. There’s so much steam the whole scene appear as if viewed through a fogged window, and the warmth seeping into his aching muscles makes him long for a good, long nap.

“Nasty scar you got there,” Maia quips. He blinks owlishly, already out of it, and she gestures to his abdomen. “Looks like you got gutted like a fish.”

Aloth groans. “He _was._”

Xoti looks up in interest, recognition clear on her face as she makes the link between the scar and their late night chat.

_Shit._

He opens his mouth, trying to come up with a way to change the subject, looking around for a distraction, when— fuck, there is a reason he was focusing on everything but what’s in front of him.

His eyes fall on Aloth, completely naked and loose in the hot water, eyes half-lidded in relaxation, and all words fall out of his mind. His mouth dries up and he swallows, hard, all thoughts of distraction forgotten as it takes everything he has to look _away_.

Maia turns to Aloth, a smile playing on her lips. “Was he really?”

“Self-sacrificing fool got in the way of a sword meant for me! It’s a miracle he didn’t lose his entrails right there, and I’m pretty sure he had to— hold them in until our priest could get to him.” Aloth seems disgusted at the memory, but Renard knows him better than that, and he can read the remaining indignation there — the same he heard in Aloth’s voice when he woke up after the fact, to immediately get lectured by his friend. “_How dare you risk your life like that”: _he remembers it as clearly as if it were yesterday.

“_Ew_,” Maia says, delighted, and just like that they drop the subject.

But Xoti’s eyes are calculating, jumping from the scar running down his stomach to Aloth then back again. Then, when she’s reasonably sure no one’s looking, the mouths ‘_Aloth?’ _to him, lifting a dubious eyebrow.

Renard groans, and sinks under the water. Edér was bad enough already, but if Xoti gets on it to— he’ll never be free of awkward conversations about his feelings, will he?

Mortified, he sinks in the water until only his eyes surface. He can always blame his red cheeks on the heat.

–

Renard can adapt to almost everything, but unfortunately sea travel isn’t on the list. He hates the lack of space, the endless ocean stretching as far as the eyes can see, with barely a hint of dry land at the horizon. There isn’t a more open space, and yet it makes him feel claustrophobic and nervous.

He can usually bear it, if only because there’s no other choices. When the night is calm and quiet, when they sail across the waves like a bird carried on the wind, when the burn of the ropes and the taste of salt help him forget about their god-shapen problems — those are good times.

Storms? Are _not_ good times.

The hold is a tight fit for them all — crew members and companions alike. Renard relinquished his quarters to Irrena, who was injured by a poorly-secured sail in the storm, and to Caergr, their surgeon, because stitching someone back together in the middle of the overcrowded hold sounded like a nightmare that definitely wasn’t worth the privacy offered by his quarters.

He’s sitting on the stairs, observing his crew milling about as the ship rolls and sways on the raging waves. Well, to be honest, he’s mostly watching Aloth, talking with Edér and Pallegina on the other side of the hold. It’s funny, after all this time he can still tell when it’s Iselmyr at the helm: it’s in the way his expression change, from amused and cocky to aggrieved but resigned, how she slouches but he manages to make ‘standing straight’ looks relaxed—

“Enjoying the view, captain?”

Renard jumps at the sound of Maia’s voice. It’s a testament to either her stealth or his distraction that he hadn't noticed her sitting next to him until she spoke up.

“Ah— Just lost in thoughts,” he explains unconvincingly.

She’s not that easily fooled, but he respects her own secrets enough that she doesn’t question it further, for which he’s grateful.

Her hesitation, on the other hand, is odd given her usual attitude, and it immediately puts him on edge. So much time traveling with nosy fuckers gave him a sixth sense for awkward conversations, and he can feel one brewing on the horizon as surely as a storm. “I was wondering— you ever gotten close to someone, even though it wasn’t… ordinary?”

“Well, a god stepped on me once. That gotta counts for something.”

She chuckles. “Yeah, that about kicks the legs out from under ‘ordinary’, doesn’t it?” Her expression soon turns more serious though. “What I’m talking about is a scenario where a difference in rank can get in the way of… enjoying shore leave, know what I’m saying?”

“Ah.” So that’s what it’s all about. “You mean a tryst between captain and crew.”

“Yeah, that about covers it. I’m just… testing the direction of the wind, here. Best not to overthink it.” Maybe it’s the way he said it, exhaustion creeping into his voice, or maybe it’s the way his eyes still linger on the trio on the other side of the room despite the sound of their discussion not reaching the two of them.

“I think it’s more important that we remain friends, Maia.”

For a second he sees her face falls, her eyes take on a sad glint, before she schools her expression back to a semblance of neutrality. Her sigh is heavy when she pushes herself to her feet, saying, “I guesses as much. I’ll give you some room to breathe—”

Suddenly, Renard is taken with the need to make her understand _why_ — that’s it’s very much him, not her, that he’s stupid and obsessed by a single, uninterested man, that he’s broken— maybe it’s the crowded air of the hold and the oppressive atmosphere of the storm getting to him, but he throws his hand up and says, “Wait!”

“You don’t have to explain, captain,” she says, not unkindly. “I get it.”

“I just— Fuck.” He gulps and rubs his hands over his face then starts again, trying to keep his voice under the surrounding noise. “It’s such a mess, Maia. You’re great, you really are, you’re beautiful and smart and dedicated—” He lets out a harsh, humorless laugh. The only kind that comes to him, lately. “If anything, history has proven that I’m into that. Anyone would jump at the opportunity.” He looks down and holds a hand to his heart. “But I don’t know if you’ve noticed, I tend to never let things go unfinished.”

She makes an understanding noise. Ishi responds in kind, crooning lowly.

“You’re already hung up over someone else, aren’t you?”

“Yeah…” His hands moves from his face to his hair, tugging nervously on the strands and getting stuck on a few knots. He tries to comb through them with his fingers to distract himself from the discussion. He already regrets speaking up. “And I bet it ain’t hard to guess who, is it?”

Maia thinks about it for a second. Then, she drops next to him, staring ahead in shock. “Fuck, I can’t believe I didn’t realize sooner.”

“I like to think I’m pretty good at hiding it, after all that time.” He tugs a little too hard on his hair and grunts in pain. She slaps his hands away. He puts them in his lap, worrying at the edge of his shirt. “Not good enough, it seems.”

“I guess I can see the appeal…” A pause. “… Kinda?”

“Oh, trust me, you _don’t_ want me to hear me gush about it.” He leans forward, rests his elbows on his knees and puts his face in his hands, letting out a long, desperate groan. “It just— keeps _happening_, you know? I never had that many people coming on to me — never had _anyone _coming on to me who didn’t want money for it before, honestly. Oswald tried to get into my bed the other day!”

“Oh no,” Maia whispers with a pained wince. “That’s just awkward.”

He sits up sharply and throws his hands in the air. “I know_,right_? Why the fuck is it even happening?”

She rolls her eyes. “Well, captain, I don’t want to flatter your ego or anything, but you’re a handsome fucker. And you keep trying to save the world. That has its appeal.”

He sighs again. Feels like he’s been doing just that for weeks now. Just— sighing endlessly, at everything, like an old, tired man. Huffing, she nudges him.

“Go take a nap.”

he gestures toward the closed door at their back. “Can’t. Irrena’s getting herself stitched up.”

“You know they’re probably making out in your bed, right?”

Is everyone on this ship getting laid but him? “I don’t want to think about it, thank you very much.”

She nudges him again, harder, and when he glares at her she points in the direction he was looking at earlier — or rather at the hammocks hanging beside them.

“Oh. Right.”

“Go get tucked in by your good pal,” she says, winking, and then she’s off, disappearing among the rest of the crew.

Sleeping, with Aloth’s voice just next to him? Fuck, he has better chance up there on the deck, rain and all.

Renard gets to his feet. Time to kick the two lovebirds out of his bed — let’s hope they’re still clothed.


End file.
